A Few Search Engine Stats, "What People Look At"

[gary]

Hello from Sacramento!

A few web search stats I plan on posting to the ResourceShelf tomorrow. 

I don't think these numbers will be a big surprise to most of you but they might 
be useful for presentations. They also might help with why learning to limit 
(limiting for many users might be placing a phrase inside quotation marks) with a 
search engine could be useful. 

Although the problems that exist with info quality are also a MAJOR concern 
(perhaps the biggest concern in the web age) and perfectly illustrated in Rich's 
recent post, I think these numbers also illustrate other major problems in the 
age of web search engines. 

----
You can read the full NUA article with more stats here:
http://www.nua.com/surveys/?f=VS&art_id=905358569&rel=true

Highlights:
"According to a recent study from iProspect, three-quarters of Internet users use 
search engines. However, 16 percent of Internet users only look at the first few 
search results, while 32 percent will read through to the bottom of the first 
page.

"The study also indicates that 52.1 percent of Internet users choose the same 
search engine or directory when searching for information, while 35 percent 
alternate among a number of favorite search properties."

"Only 7.5 percent of Internet users said they refined their search with 
additional keywords in cases where they were unable to achieve satisfactory 
results."
Source: NUA Internet Surveys, 11/14/02


More Here:
http://cyberatlas.internet.com/markets/advertising/article/0,,5941_1500821,00.html
or
http://tinyurl.com/2rur


cheers,
gary



The Virtual Acquisition Shelf and News Desk (The ResourceShelf)
http://resourceshelf.freepint.com-- 
--
Gary D. Price, MLIS
Librarian
Gary Price Library Research and Internet Consulting
gary at freepint.com